Taken with a telescopic lens from our Chardonnay bloc on the northside of the river, looking south, the winery can barely be seen behind a clump of trees just below the bare brown hill.

The riverbed is dry but there is actually a trickle flowing – most of it is underground. This ‘trickle’ keeps the wells, downstream from Cachuma dam, filled and in a dry year, like this one, we have to irrigate earlier than usual.